Who Can You Tell uses the NSPCC PANTS campaign to teach important learning for all children to understand body rights. The lesson focuses on staying safe from sexual harm (including female genital mutilation and child sex exploitation), without specific mention of these types of harm.
Accompanying the lesson is a 3 minute film, Who Can You Tell?, which encourages children to raise any concerns about sexual harm with a teacher or school health nurse.
Who is the lesson for?
Primary school children in Key Stage 1. Teachers are best placed to know whether the children in their class will respond better to a lesson delivered to a mixed group or to girls and boys in separate groups.
Who will deliver the lesson?
The lesson is delivered by two of our facilitators, with the class teacher on hand to help support the children. We will bring a large, soft toy, Blue Rabbit, who is very wise (rabbits are seen as wise in African culture) and is there to cuddle and make the children feel comfortable. Having two facilitators means that someone is always on hand if the lesson becomes difficult for any of the children or there are any disclosures.
What is included?
Resources
Lesson plan for ‘Who Can You Tell?’
Letter to parents/carers for ‘Who Can You Tell?’ lesson
We also offer lessons for year 6 students upwards to support learning on FGM. Each lesson is age appropriate and can be tailored to meet the needs of the school. There are lots of creative ways of talking about FGM. Here are some examples of lessons that we can deliver:
Supporting children’s learning on FGM and human rights
Who is the lesson for?
Year 6 students
What is included?
The lesson is designed to give children an understanding of FGM within the broader context of human rights and includes:
– Different cultural traditions, such as cuisines, art and celebrations
– Why it is important to talk about culture
– Understanding and respecting different cultures
– Basic introduction to FGM (what, why, harms and law)
– What you can do if you are worried about a friend
– Examples of young people around the world tackling human rights breaches
– Hope and change
Who will deliver the lesson?
All our lessons are delivered by women, and at least one of our facilitators will be from an affected community.
Our lessons are designed to support children to understand what FGM is, to feel confident talking to a friend about FGM and to know where to get help.
Who is the lesson for?
Year 7 upwards
What is included?
– Why it is important to talk about our bodies and what can harm us
-Why human rights are important
– What FGM is (definition, age, statistics)
– Hannah – a film by Integrate UK
– What you would do if you were worried about a friend
– Harms of FGM
– Reasons why FGM happens
– Help and support
– Hope and change
Art can be a great way to support learning on FGM and promote solidarity against the practice. We have incorporated art into a number of anti-FGM lessons, for example, Didcot Girls’ School decorated roses to create an anti-FGM display board for our community events.
Oxford Against Cutting and East Oxford United, a community football club, worked in partnership to support boys to become anti-FGM champions and learn about healthy relationships.
We worked with 19 boys from the club, who ranged from 13 to 17 years of age, and included participants from a wide range of community groups, including East African, Eastern European, Middle Eastern, South Asian, British African and Asian and English.
The boys took part in 8 football workshops on Tackling Mindset, Consent, Healthy and Unhealthy Relationships, What is Masculine/What is Feminine, FGM, anti-FGM Champions, Communities and Change and Body Image.
The coaches at East Oxford United, led by Hassan Sabrie, helped embed learning on the pitch after the workshop, with players using terms such as “respect”; “speak up!” and “cancel and continue!” to reinforce the workshop material.
Please see also our Body Image Lessons for sixth form students, with learning on FGM, female cosmetic genital surgery and body image (including pornography and sexting).
Oxford Against Cutting 2020 leaflet with details on all our workshops